Just the ticket

New e-citation system speeds up police work

BOB GWALTNEY / Courier & Press
Chief Deputy Dave Wedding and Angie Selby of the Vanderburgh County Sheriff's Department demonstrate the new e-citation software and hardware for patrol cars. Using a scanner, the deputies can read the codes on driver's licenses and registration and view the information on their laptops.

Wedding pulls a printed ticket from the console printer as he demonstrates the new e-citation software and hardware for patrol cars. The printed ticket does away with the problems that come with handwritten tickets.

The new e-citation systems being installed locally speed up traffic stops considerably, although one major component of it can be used only with motorists from Indiana.

The scanning device that automatically inputs driver information into the system will work only with Indiana licenses and registrations, officials say.

Motorists from other states still will be ticketed or warned through the system, but the deputy, trooper or police officer making the stop will have to type the license information into the computer. Once in, the system works just the same as with the scanner, checking for warrants and alerts and ultimately printing out a paper ticket.

"It may sound like a setback," Vanderburgh County Sheriff Eric Williams said. "But in looking at our traffic stops, 75 percent or better are Indiana residents."

Indiana State Police Sgt. Todd Ringle said the system's inability to work with other states has been the lone drawback in an otherwise positive transition. His agency began using the system in late 2007.

But even the inability to scan other states may not be a problem forever.

"It will be an even more valuable tool when more states get on board with this e-ticket system," he said. "And that's just a matter of time."

— Gavin Lesnick

Courier & Press staff writer

When Vanderburgh County sheriff's deputies stop a vehicle for a traffic violation, they often read the driver's information into the radio to check for alerts and warrants and to verify whether it's a valid license.

It can take several minutes for the deputy to repeat the license number and the full name of the operator.

That changes with the new in-car Electronic Citation and Warning System.

"Now I go bing-bing, and it's all done," said Vanderburgh County Sheriff Eric Williams, referencing the new hand-held scanner that reads the bar code on driver's licenses and registrations.

"We're pretty excited about it."

And that's not the only benefit: Officials say the e-citation system will speed up traffic stops as a whole, streamline the administrative process of filing the ticket and make for a more legible, easier-to-understand document.

The system, which debuted locally with the Indiana State Police in late 2007, currently is being implemented in both the Vanderburgh County Sheriff's Department and the Evansville Police Department. Each in-car unit costs about $700, although it's funded largely through grants administered by the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute.

The Police Department expects to add 80 of the devices — which work with the in-car computer systems already installed in the patrol vehicles — within the next two months. The Sheriff's Department already has installed its first e-citation unit in a patrol vehicle and will add 39 more in the near future.

Across Indiana, more than 40 agencies are using the e-citation system and giving out the uniform ticket it creates.

Williams said it's a wise investment, given the current economic situation.

"The reality is we're not going to be getting any new money," he said. "So we're trying to find ways we can work smarter."

And the new system does just that, he said.

Whereas deputies previously had to write out separate tickets for each violation, the new system allows multiple violations to be added to a single ticket with a click of a button.

Instead of scrawling out all the necessary information on carbon paper, which someone down the line would have to decipher and enter in a computer database, the system automatically sends copies of the electronic ticket to the courts and the state.

There's no fear of misplaced paperwork, and eliminating that extra re-entering of data will save time and improve accuracy, Williams said.

"The quality of work will be much greater," he said. "Any time you're keying new information in, you're going to make mistakes. That's just the way it is."

As for the offender, the system quietly and quickly prints out a copy of the ticket in an in-car printer. The whole process takes minutes.

Sitting in the first Sheriff's Department patrol vehicle to receive the system recently, Chief Deputy Dave Wedding demonstrated how it works.

With Williams as a test, Wedding scanned the sheriff's driver's license and immediately saw Williams' personal information on the screen.

"There is a message for you," it spoke in a voice Williams likened to HAL 9000 from the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey," before saying his license number and that he is a 43-year-old white male. It would have warned of warrants or other alerts, although Williams' record is clean.

From there, it takes a few screens of inputting location, the violation and any other comments. Then the ticket is printed and signed — the only handwriting that remains in the process — and the electronic version is sent onward.

Even though he acknowledges people may think it's all part of a scheme to bang out more citations in quicker order, Williams said that's not the intention.

"The obvious thought that's going to run through people's minds is, 'Oh this is great, they're going to be able to write more tickets,'" he said.

"I guess that's true, but that's not the goal. What we want to do is write a higher quality of ticket and make our people more efficient so they can spend more time patrolling."